It is almost 18 years since the Ukrainian secret service was reformed (the Law of Ukraine “On the Security Service of Ukraine” was passed on March 25, 1992, when the service was still headed by Yevhen Marchuk). Over this period, the service has undergone various processes, such as changes of chairmen, staff rotation and cuts, and reformatting of structural units. Naturally, there were the times of Kuchma and the Orange Revolution. But what is the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) like today? In an exclusive interview with The Day, SBU Chairman Valentyn Nalyvaichenko speaks on the well-known high-profile cases, staff-placing policy, the criminal case about the 1932—1933 Holodomor, and the likelihood of lustration.
Today, all candidates for the presidency are saying they are determined to combat corruption. The current President of Ukraine, Viktor Yushchenko, has also been repeatedly saying this. As long ago as in the spring of 2005 he announced the decision to establish the National Bureau of Investigations (NBR). And just a few days ago the president rode roughshod over all the law-enforcement bodies for the way they are fighting corruption. The entire Ukraine saw and heard this. You took part in this meeting as the SBU head. This raises the question: maybe, Ukraine has an altogether wrong system of fighting this evil? It is shameful to hear and read that Ukraine is irreversibly slipping towards being one of the world’s most corrupt countries. What is your vision of this problem? Who should do what?
“In my view, no matter what various candidates may be saying, they must admit the following: fighting corruption should begin with drastically cutting and placing under control most of the functions of bureaucrats. In simpler terms, the giving of any license, certificate or permission should be: a) as simple as possible, b) transparent, and c) independent of the person. It should not depend on the bureaucrat to make or not to make a decision – the latter should depend on the payment of duties, submission of clearly-defined documents, transparent control over the collection of taxes, etc.
“We can only say that a candidate is sincere if they admit that the number of bureaucratic institutions and their functions should be considerably reduced. Here is a simple example: two days ago we caught the head of an executive body known as Ukrainian State Seeds Inspection taking a bribe. Collecting bribes was the only occupation of this person (Serhii Chmyr – Ed.). He exacted bribes worth up to 3,000 euros a month from every regional inspection chief. This raises a question: where did the regional heads of this inspection take money from? This is an illustrative pyramid of corruption. When we were apprehending this briber, we were just shocked with the system of bribing. The root cause is that there is a bureaucrat who is in charge of seeds in Ukraine – moreover, the state is funding him.
“Secondly, it is, of course, necessary to establish a single corruption control body. I do not have a shadow of a doubt here. Why has this kind of body not been formed yet? The question remains open. At the same time, I would not overrate the resources of the law-enforcement system in fighting corruption.
“Thirdly, why do statistics show that Ukraine is one of the world’s most corrupt countries? Just because we have opened 80 criminal cases in the past year against no other than judges of various levels, including six against chairpersons of local and district courts. What other country can ‘boast’ of such a success? Suffice it to recall Zvarych who, incidentally, is now in pretrial custody. It is an unheard-of thing in any European country to have the president of a regional court arrested for bribery. One more criminal case was opened against the president of the Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast Administrative Court.
“But the corruption system that we have inherited from the Soviet Union must be suppressed not only from the top but also from the very bottom, i.e., throughout the vertical line of administration. Naturally, it is not enough to have only the law-enforcement for this, so this problem should be tackled, first of all, on the legislative level. It is very good that changes in the law about increasing anticorruption efforts are to come into force on January 1. For example, if someone is on the books as a corrupt official, they have no right to assume this office again. This is right, but, at the same time, I think that judges who have made more than one unjust rulings should also be dismissed from office via the High Council of Justice or some other mechanism set up by lawmakers. Besides, administrative corruption should be made subject to criminal prosecution.
“Who is supposed to do this? We must vote in the elections for the political forces that offer a concrete way of overcoming this situation rather than general phrases. If someone says that a strong state means increasing the army of bureaucrats, it is a wrong way to go.
“Now about the Security Service. We think that the functions, equipment and premises of our Main Directorate for Corruption Control should be transferred to a single anticorruption body. The latter should also incorporate the powerful anticorruption apparatus of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Prosecutor-General’s Office. The latter now deals with all corruption-related offenses of 1st-to-3rd grade civil servants. Naturally, a single body cannot be a panacea but it will help centralize and coordinate anticorruption efforts.”
Does demilitarization of the SBU still remain a pressing problem today? Will there be trade unions and an eight-hour workday at the SBU after the demilitarization? What are the main arguments for demilitarization?
“This problem remains pressing to some extent. But we are already inviting more and more civil servants to work at our organization. In fact, civil servants now account for a half of the SBU board, while they make up 30 to 35 percent in other units. Besides, the president has already approved a dual schedule of rates – in other words, individuals who have been appointed or promoted to top offices may be either civil servants or military servicemen. A new law is in the pipeline, which will call for final demilitarization of the SBU. The only exception is antiterrorist, military, some of the counterintelligence and security units.
“The essence of demilitarization is that one should be able not so much to brandish arms as to be a lawyer, to work on computers, to document an offense in order to refer it to court, etc. This also means relief from the function of arresting people and taking them into custody. As for trade unions, we already have and enjoy cooperation with them. An 8-hour working day depends on whether we will be a special-purpose or a law-enforcement authority. In the former case, there will be a salary rates schedule that includes overtime benefits.”
The mass media mostly cover SBU efforts to combat crime. And what is the counterintelligence doing today? Are there foreign intelligence agents operating in Ukraine, are foreign secret services recruiting Ukrainian citizens? And what for? We are friends with all the NATO countries. Research, the military-industrial complex, and the Armed Forces are severely underfunded, so, in all probability, there are no new secret projects; the economy is in crisis, and all political secrets are common knowledge. Has the SBU caught any foreign spies in the past few years and, if so, from what countries?
“Ukraine does have serious projects and secrets and, hence, foreign secret services remain interested in recruiting our citizens. They are or trying rather hard to be working on our territory by recruiting Ukrainian citizens and hunting for our projects. In the past six months alone, we have exposed seven foreign intelligence officers disguised as diplomats. There are three ongoing criminal cases which also involve citizens of Ukraine. They were drawn into unlawful activities and committed criminal offenses. In four instances, we managed to keep our citizens from committing an offense by way of preventive measures, so they will not be brought to criminal justice.
“Here are some examples. In the above-mentioned period, we have exposed a citizen of Russia, who was busy stealing research projects in the military-industrial sector for the Chinese secret service. As a matter of fact, secret services never name the country whose agent has been apprehended because this is an insult for that country. So I think what I said is enough. The final stage in our work is a demarche to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs or, if possible, directly to the special secret service in question. If necessary, we deport these people from our territory.”
You have repeatedly said that the criminal case about the 1932—1933 Holodomor, opened by the Security Service of Ukraine, will be referred to court before the end of this year. Have you received any documental materials from Russia or other countries? Do you think this will change the attitude of those people who claim there was no genocide of the Ukrainian people – after the court finally resolves this case and concrete charges are leveled against concrete individuals? Is there sufficient documentary evidence, in the legal sense of the matter, that this was genocide of the Ukrainian people?
“I do not think people should be forced to change their viewpoints, for we are pursuing an altogether different goal. Some expert examinations in this criminal case are drawing to a close, and we intend to refer the matter to court by the end of the year. There is a glut of documents – 253 volumes. We have also sent inquiries to Russia’s Federal Security Service: their latest reply said that they referred our inquiries to the Russian Federation’s prosecution service. I am convinced that all the authentic evidence that exists in Ukraine and found by investigators – including maps, documents, and names – furnishes proof that there was an act of genocide on a specific territory.
“This will answer, once and for all, the questions why almost 10 million Ukrainians died of famine and why international experts apply to us the term ‘post-genocidal nation,’ why and how Western companies took advantage of the grain that the Bolsheviks sold abroad, etc. But the final ruling in this case is only the beginning of other – civil, moral, juridical, and political – processes. But, above all, I strongly hope that we will duly honor the memory of our fathers and all those who lived in the seven genocide-stricken regions.”
What is your attitude to lustration as it is recommended by some politicians?
“After working with KGB archives for three years, I slightly changed my attitude to lustration because I really saw in these documents how people were beaten into giving evidence, what tortures existed, and how villainously the authorities treated people. I am convinced that lustration – in the way it was done in European states – is impossible in our country. Because, firstly, the label of ‘snitcher’ was often attached to people who had nothing to do with this; secondly, many documents were forged; and, thirdly, as I have said before, people were tortured into giving ‘evidence.’
“Investigating genocide is investigating just a fraction of the crimes that the Soviet authorities committed from 1917 to 1991. People were awfully scared, so it is not until we look into all these crimes that we will be able to speak about a parallel lustration.
“I have been in the SBU for three years. When I assumed this office, we could not even dream of instituting criminal proceedings. But life has changed in the past two years – also for the Security Service of Ukraine. I do not think it is wrong if we wait for a year or two while other bloody crimes of the Soviet regime are being investigated and only then bring the process of lustration into motion on the basis of impartial documents.”
People’s Deputy Hryhorii Omelchenko has sent to The Day a copy of his parliamentary query to President Viktor Yushchenko of Ukraine, which alleges that the Prosecutor-General’s Office is dragging its feet, for political reasons, about “completing the pretrial investigation and bringing to criminal justice the organizers and inspires of the kidnapping and murder of the journalist Heorhii Gongadze.” In particular, Mr. Omelchenko notes that Oleksii Pukach, who was apprehended last summer, has fully admitted his guilt and given testified about the organizers and inspirers of the crime. What can you say about the prospects of the final investigation into such high-profile cases as the murder of Gongadze and the poisoning of President Yushchenko, as well as the cases of MP Lozynsky, judge Zvarych, and others?
“As for the murder of Heorhii Gongadze, it is an extremely serious and high-profile case. The SBU has coped with the task: we tracked down, detained, and brought to Kyiv Oleksii Pukach. Moreover, we are keeping him in a high-security jail cell. He can see every day a Prosecutor-General’s Office investigator who observes the secrecy of prosecution, for which I highly respect him. I hope the investigator is effectively helping the Prosecutor-General. He is not answerable to the SBU chief, so it is difficult for me to say what procedural decision we can or cannot expect from this group of investigators.
“We have found, dug up and duly examined the places in the woods, which Pukach revealed. They showed horrible things – there still are mass graves in Ukraine. One of these graves contained the remains of ten corpses with signs of violent death. Naturally, it is very important to establish the identity of those who contracted the murder of Gongadze, but it is also important to track down the organizers of these ten murders. Incidentally, all the victims are aged 45 to 50 and there are women among them.
“As for the case of Zvarych, I told him he would end up behind bars, and he is there now. And it is very good that the court extended the term of his detention. But the matter is not only in Zvarych. With all due respect for the judge’s gown, I must say it was a serious criminal grouping. I am sure Zvarych will be convicted.
“As for Lozynsky, I can say that we are looking for him and I think the result will be the same as with Pukach. I would not advise him to rely on his patrons. It is better to meet the demands of the Prosecutor-General’s Office and surrender. Otherwise, he will be found and brought into custody by force.
“Now about the poisoning of Yushchenko. A powerful group of investigators from the Prosecutor-General’s Office, the SBU, and the Ministry of Internal Affairs has been working on this case since 2004. It has done a lot of procedural actions. For example, with court’s permission, we are taking some operational and technical measures. But it is only the investigative group that can produce a result.”
